Chapter 10 - The Prince's Pawn

Callum is NOT Amused

Aria

With my legs firmly clamped around Khalid, I grabbed his face with my hand, like I was trying to make him take his medicine, and I gasped as it all washed over me.

Despite the cool and charming aura he showed on the outside, the man was a raging cistern of fury, the likes of which made my own tantrum in the conference room look weak by comparison.

His life had gone from happy and unbothered privilege to skating on the edge of execution in mere months. His grief at being told his father was dead from anaphylactic shock, his impotent rage at his dumbest uncle ascending the throne, the way his sisters were confined to their homes and forced to wear black bags. It all changed him.

His willingness to snatch me and solicit me for murder was just one of many symptoms of his growing anger… and desperation.

Buried beneath all those heavy emotions was something else—a magnetic attraction to me, mixed with guilt for having kidnapped me. Through his eyes I saw him looking down at my unconscious b…